Hazard Assessment

Avalanche hazard describes the source of potential harm, the nature of potential avalanches, independent of any element at risk. Lots of research has gone into improving our understanding of avalanche as a physical phenomenon and how to monitor factor affecting associated hazard. However, the step from making observations to deciding whether it is safe to enter a particular slope is challenging and requires substantial practical experience.

Our objective in this research area is to improve our ability to assess and communicate information about avalanche hazard by capturing the assessment expertise of avalanche professionals and integrating it with existing assessment methods to develop tools that provide information that is more directly relevant risk management decisions.

Research projects

Current projects

Seasonal avalanche hazard forecasting

How do climate variabilities such as ENSO or PDO affect avalanche hazard in western Canada?

Objective

While the effect of large-scale climate patterns (e.g., El Niño-Southern Oscillation) on winter temperature and precipitation in Western Canada is relatively well understood, little is known regarding the link between climate and avalanche hazard. Previous studies have been hindered by inconsistent or incomplete avalanche, weather, and snowfall observations. Using avalanche hazard assessments from Avalanche Canada and Parks Canada from the 2009/10 to 2016/17 winter seasons I examine the nature and variability of avalanche hazard and the relationship to large-scale climate patterns. I identify typical avalanche hazard situations and calculate their seasonal prevalence to develop a quantitative measure of the nature of local avalanche hazard conditions. I then use the prevalence values of typical hazard conditions to examine of the relationship between climate variabilities and avalanche hazard. This study suggests a relationship between the climate patterns and avalanche hazard situations with a method that is more informative for avalanche risk management.

Linking avalanche danger ratings to the CMAH

What danger ratings are associated with different combinations of avalanche problem types, likelihood of avalanches and destructive size?

Objective

Daily avalanche bulletins are prepared by Avalanche Canada and Parks Canada to communicate avalanche hazard information to the public in western Canada. They represent the primary source of information for recreationalists assessing avalanche hazard when planning trips in mountainous backcountry terrain. While the recently introduced conceptual model of avalanche hazard (CMAH) provides avalanche forecasters with a framework for assimilating observations and characterizing avalanche hazard in a structured way, the CMAH does not provide guidance on how to rate the conditions according to the North American avalanche danger scale, a ordinal five-levels scale, which is used to communicate the general character of the conditions to the public in the most concise way. Danger scale ratings are a critical input parameter for popular decision aids like the Avaluator and some worksite avalanche safety plans use them to initiate mitigation measures. Using the operational avalanche bulletin databases of Avalanche Canada and Parks Canada (2010 to 2017), this research establishes a quantitative link between hazard assessments according to the CMAH and avalanche danger ratings using a variety of supervised machine learning techniques.